As 2017 closes, our correspondents around the world look at the challenges and accomplishments of leaders.

Leaders in the limelight

President Rodrigo Duterte, Philippines

The president is as popular as ever with his people, but 2017 has thrown up some challenges to his boundary-pushing rule, says Philippines correspondent Raul Dancel.

The biggest shock was the Marawi City siege in May, when extremists inspired by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria stormed the city and held on to it for five months despite onslaughts by six army battalions.

The 51-year-old seemed poised to make history as the first elected governor of Jakarta who is not only Chinese but also Christian. But Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, better known by his nickname Ahok, was defeated at the polls by education minister Anies Baswedan in April and was jailed for blasphemy against Islam a few weeks later.

Indonesia Bureau chief Francis Chan said Basuki's straight-talking manner and championing of pluralism has endeared him to many but also attracted many opponents.

Kem Sokha began the year as a vice-president of Cambodia's biggest opposition party which posed a challenge to long ruling Prime Minister Hun Sen. He assumed the mantle of opposition leader after his exiled predecessor resigned.

Now, as the year draws to a close, much of his political network has been dismantled, and many colleagues are in exile. Holed up in Trapeang Plong prison near the Vietnamese border, he is being questioned for alleged treason.

Leaders in East Asia

Chinese President Xi Jinping's year of 2017 was bookended by two events that made the world sit up and take notice of his growing stature as a global statesman and the immense power he wields at home.

One was his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January that gave notice of his intention to lead his country in keeping economic globalisation going, in the face of the United States' retreat with new President Donald Trump's America First policy.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will end what has been a roller-coaster year on a high, with steadying support ratings on the back of a resounding snap-election victory.

Mr Abe, 63, has led Japan since December 2012. And he could be in power until October 2021, when the next general election is due, if he survives an internal Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leadership vote next September as widely expected.

With the election of Mr Moon Jae In in May this year, South Koreans finally have a charismatic "People's President" to call their own.

Mr Moon, 64, is a liberal leader who listens to the people and reaches out to them. He clearly bears in mind that he rode to office on the back of public anger and desire for change after his predecessor was impeached in March.

What goes up, must come down; all politicians are familiar with this iron rule of their profession. And that is the rule which German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the woman who has effectively run Europe for over a decade, is almost certain to be reminded of next year.

She is an instinctively cautious politician. Yet she can also be very courageous.

Few of Europe's leaders had a worse year. While Britain's Theresa May started the year brimming with ideas for reform of her country, she ends it stumbling from one political row to another, struggling to quash daily media speculation that she is about to be ditched by her own party.

Yet, she has also surprised her critics by displaying a remarkable resilience and determination in negotiating Britain's departure from the European Union. So, continuing to clock up solid achievements on that front may well lift her dismal political fortunes in the coming year.

"I don't want to be the leader of Europe; I want to be one of the leaders," French President Emmanuel Macron quipped recently in response to a journalist's question.

He could have hardly said anything else. But modesty does not sit well with the man often referred to at home as "Jupiter", after the king of gods in ancient Rome. For many in Europe, he is the continent's miraculous saviour.

The Straits Times

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